A robot is a reprogrammable multi-functional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices to perform a variety of tasks. Contemporary industrial robots are helping to reduce human drudgery in manufacturing plants throughout the world, to improve productivity, and to reduce manufacturing costs. Robots can be trained to perform complex and tedious jobs. Through the use of sensors and adaptive controls, robots can even cope with changing conditions in the workplace.
To assemble a wire harness, a robot must be able to sense the ends of the wire. With this in mind, it is important that any auxiliary equipment facilitating robotic assembly be able to position the ends of the wire in predictable locations where the robot manipulator may grip the wire.
While it is possible to build machines which will assemble a single type of wire harness in a single configuration, the cost of such machinery is prohibitive for assembly of small lots of different wire harnesses. These dedicated, single task machines do not need to use robots. There is a need for a flexible system with flexible automation to make wire harnesses in small lots while allowing ease of reconfiguration to produce a variety of wire harnesses. Robotic assembly provides this flexible approach.
Most wire harness machines rely heavily on manual labor to configure the harnesses insomuch as the machines layup the wires and bind them, but do not complete the ends. Only after being bundled are the ends of each wire configured. Such an operation is prohibitively expensive when the demand for a particular harness is relatively large. Even with dedicated machines for layup, the configuring of ends of the harnesses is generally done manually.